


The Teenage Storyteller

by CrowsfromCrawford



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, First work - Freeform, High School, M/M, Slow Burn, Vaguely Early 2000s, open to critique
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrowsfromCrawford/pseuds/CrowsfromCrawford
Summary: The death of Goldenbloom's prestige was spontaneous but inevitable. The economy of the town has fallen drastically in the last few years.Those who had vast wealth are now proclaimed as being morally bankrupt, those who were in style are now hanging on to the last feathers of their fur coats, and those who were held in high regard can now only be seen on top of their puny high horses. What can bloom was plucked so that it can never reach tall enough to oversee all of its dead garden.Then something new appeared. The PJ club (short for Photography & Journalism) had an idea for school unity. A blog accessible to all students.With this social diary, the high-schoolers begin to accidentally unravel the faults in a town where the grown-ups have already made up their mind, while the children are still figuring out where to find theirs.





	The Teenage Storyteller

Last year, Goldenbloom had made almost national news for an astonishing record of the highest amount of death for any town in the past half a decade. While a normal town within that time span might have had maybe six or even ten, to be generous, twenty if something really disastrous happened.

Goldenbloom had thirty-four.

Some were accidental drownings, at times car crashes, a lot of workplace accidents, and the remaining lot was suicide.

Turning off the staticky television. The news in Goldenbloom hadn't exactly been the same, just indistinct.

I went out, purple school backpack with me, not in uniform however. It's been a month since I was told I'll be transferring, and every day or so that passed felt like the same passage of time, the temperature was hotter or colder at times but it was still that sunny Goldenbloom appeal that I had grown to be accustomed with.

That typical scene of flowers near the hill of my house, my red-bricked house, the one that has a bite off the porch missing from a drunk driver ramming into it.

I never am able to understand how it all feels so fake but look so real. These stairs, this pavement was once silver, it has turned brown.

My house feels like a mole or an ant hill, between the trenches of a mound and an actual street, I have to shield my eyes every time I go up to civilization or else the sun herself blinds me. It's like-

God! I didn't even realise it rained last night!

I had almost fallen bare on my ass back down the flight of steps when a hand pulled me up by my elbow.

"Are you alright? I'm sorry I didn't catch you in time," A worried, 

"Theo?"

His hazel eyes looked down on me gripping onto both the wet railing and the soft, white flesh of his arm that he held out to catch me.

"I was hoping to get here sooner, as in sooner-sooner! But Bryony wanted to come again."

He used his other hand that was also holding onto a damp wood post to hold my other arm and hoist me fully back on my feet. As he did, he let out a soft grunt and knelt down.

"Did you sprain something?"

"No, I think my ankle just got twisted a little. I can still walk, I'm sure," He said calmly, and then immediately crumbled on the wood post not so calmly.

"I'll hold you up," I wrapped my arms around under his shoulders and let him sink slowly into my hold. My curly red hair brushing against his soft red lips. The familiar feeling of having to carry him, and having his face besides mine. Only a little more different, he is still younger than me, it shows in his blushing, seraphic face, but his willowy build had reminded me how much we've grown. Grown apart.

"Thanks, Wendy." He readjusted my glasses that got smooshed between our ears

So long since that's been said.

"No welcome, The-"

"Theodore!" A voice from down the street yelled out. It was Bryony, who jumped down from the rocky little hill and was now running over to us. Her white socks visibly stained in mud, which Theodore's lips slightly gaped at.

"Bryony. I told you not to run when it's rained," Theodore said with concern.

She slowed her running but dug her heel into the cracks of the pavement to stop herself. "I know! I was very close to going a full five blocks without slipping!"

She shifted her gaze to me and her expression beamed.

"Gwen!" She walked fast towards us and hugged my arm. "I missed you so much! Are you coming back to our house?"

I held her off lightly as to keep Theodore from falling while he was still testing out his ankle endurance. "I was. After all, me and Theodore are going to the same school now."

"Isn't it amazing?" Bryony said as she took Theodore's other shoulder and we began to try and walk back to their house.

"It is!" Theodore joyously agreed, albeit wincing a little from the ankle injury.

We walked neatly and carefully to the Clemence household. It was not that far from my house, but it did have a sizable distance that left me and the two honey-haired Clemence siblings to have some silences.

When we reached to the front door, Bryony propped Theodore up on the little hammock and entered inside, screaming for Nanny Evelyn. I sat next to Theodore.

"I just have to say-"

"You don't have to," Theodore said.

Theodore smiled at me.

"It's good I still have you," I said and made him blush a little again.

Theodore put his hand against the doorknob and opened it. Pulling himself up and looking in as I hold his arm again.

"I'm better now, but thank you." He went inside and just in time Nanny Evelyn came with the school uniform that my parents didn't have time to pick up from the school.

"Here you go," She said cheerfully. I take the neatly folded clothes from her and while her and Theodore told me that I can go to his room upstairs to change.

The journey upstairs and through the long halls was also a journey through time, seeing all the old but still well-kept photos and maps we had made together. Decorations and paintings of birds mixed with fairytale folk creatures that I commonly associated with all six of the Clemence siblings.

I entered the second to the last door, the one that had Theodore's name painted on red roses. And I changed quickly to not make us both late.

We were escorted to Theo's school, I guess now also my school, by Nanny Evelyn by car. The painted silver gates closing off the outside public from their church and their golden school premises.

"Saint Aurelia Of The Silvery Sky," or the school of SilverSky, to be short. One of the only places left in Goldenbloom that was able to maintain some command of its dignity.

Since I didn't have an ID yet, Theo was let in first while I had to sign in my name manually.

"Gwendolen Iris Teague."

When I had made it up two floors, Theodore had been waiting for me and held my hand as we entered the classroom. We were bumped into but whatever, school was starting and people had business to do. Although, it was said today's first subject would have to be a substitute teacher.

Theodore told me to wait as he went and talked to a girl with a noire complexion that rivaled any nighttime sky, and a crown braid of thick ravenhair. She nodded along to whatever he was saying and set her eyes on me, eyes blank like a canvas. She fiddled with a pink brooch she had on her that sparkled elegantly. Left-handed.

Another boy with a blue denim jacket from the other side of the classroom walked behind the girl and started talking to Theodore. Dark, kinky hair shadowing his brown doe-eyes. He looked quizzically at Theodore then at me then back at Theodore. I feel like I've seen him before.

He nodded as he sat down and the girl went to her seat which was further away.

Theodore turned back and walked towards me.

"Gwendolen, I know how much you love journaling. How do you feel about joining our club?" Theodore asked.

I looked back at him. "Really?"

He jumped excitedly. "Yeah! It's superb! We could do so many things together again. I just asked my friends to let you join us and they agreed," He said, pointing back at the two previous students.

I was about to say something when the substitute came in. "Good morning, Class. I'll be your substitute this October 1st for your English teacher Miss Oliveira who was sick this week." The class let out a sigh of relief while I sat down on the nearest seat and Theodore was told by the boy from earlier to sit down with him.

"Miss Miriam Albright" was written on the chalkboard. "Now, class. I was told there needed to be a seating arrangement. So please go in order of surname."

Everyone immediately stood up, as I had just began to feel comfortable, and started getting in lines.

I sat up hesitantly when the girl from earlier gently grabs my hand and leads me behind her in the line of girls.

"Now that I have you in lines, I'll need everyone to write their name on this piece of paper as attendance."

As we did that, we were all one by one starting from the first letter to be led to our seat in boy and girl manner. Theodore and the boy he was already seated next to earlier appears to be next to him in name as he's behind Theodore and they chuckled at this.

Me and the girl, who I'm guessing knows my name, were in one of the last rows along with another boy, and together they were seated in front of me, and I ended up dead last in the second column. I looked to the first column where Theodore was seated and saw he was talking to three other people now besides the other boy. Two were girls who seemed very close with each other, and a boy who looks coincidentally a lot like the boy in front of me now.

Classes went on as mandated and next thing I knew it's recess.

Theodore pulled me to the side and took me downstairs from the cafeteria, into a room that had a "No Enter" sign on the glass. Inside were all the students I had seen earlier talking to Theodore!

"Gwendolen, meet my club-buds!"

The first boy I saw stood up. "Everyone please be respectful to our visitor. Good morning, Gwendolen? My name is Brendan Blake Costello, I promise we aren't always as lazy as we may appear right now," He said this as one girl and a boy were playing with the paper shredder.

"Hi. We've met already! You tutored my brother."

He's taken aback. "Did I? Where do you live?"

"The downside street, near the rock mound."

"I have been there many times. Apologies for not remembering," 

"Don't sweat it. Might be for the best."

"Maybe," He shook my hand.

"Hm?"

"Nothing. Sonja, please come help," He gestured for the girl playing with the shredder to stand up, to which she held a finger up for a second.

I looked besides Brendan to the girl from before who helped with my seating.

"Welcome," She had spoken for the first time. A lovely melodic voice like a stream in spring.

"I'm Amanda Rehnqvist."

Before I could respond. The door opens again and in enters the boy who sat next to us. Brendan stopped and walked over to the ivory-skinned boy who was looking down the entire time.

"Good morning," Brendan said with a slight questioning tone in his voice.

The boy glanced up at him with verdant green eyes under wispy brown hair but looked away again. "Thank you. Good morning," He said soft-spoken as he sat down behind Amanda.

"Greetings," The deep, husky voice jolted me out of thinking, "Theo told me you wanted to be a part of the club. Why exactly?" Asked the girl with the emerald green pendant and two golden hairpins on both sides of her slick, jet black bob.

"I thought it'd be nice to do something in my free time, and also maybe have a familiar friend around," I thought of quickly.

"You guys are still friends?" She asked sincerely.

"Yes..." I said as she shrugged in response.

"This club has been eradicated from school eyes for years now. Students don't make a lot of views, we don't make a lot of news." Is that a challenge?

"But still, I want to join just because."

"I know. I'm just telling you to not get too engrossed and think you can be a big influence in the school or anything. This is a school newspaper, not a filibuster. I've read your essays." I was stunned and she looked at me and smirked a little.

"Sonja Chen," She introduced herself and I got more tongue-tied at the realization that I was speaking to the mayor of Pledmond Valley's daughter. I didn't know she went to school in Goldenbloom!

I go to speak to someone else to calm myself and talk to the boy who looks like the one who just entered.

"Hey, sup, I'm Dodger Cayley." Wow! Dodger Cayley of-

"Frederick Hark!"

"You've seen my kid show!" He laughed obnoxiously and adjusted his orange baseball cap.

"Of course I have! Only kid show set in Goldenbloom. You were so cute!"

"I still am!" He grinned at me and I did the same back.

"I've seen you somewhere before too, I think," He thought out loud.

"Have you?"

"Don't remember. I don't go to that side of town too often, too dirty," He nonchalantly replied.

"Oh, alright," I said, a little disappointed.

"Address. Where do you live again?"

"I'm-"

"Oh, the one with the red broken porch. Gotcha. Remember now."

"How?"

"Isn't your house the one that got featured on the news last month? Saw it on the way home from practice, was hanging at the ice cream shop. Ever been to Isle de Glace?"

I was stuttering as I tried to find my words.

"You should come to one of my games. We need more cheerleaders on our side," He continued talking.

I had finally regained my composure and got out a sentence or two. "No thanks. I don't think me being on any cheer squad will cheer up players."

"No, obviously I didn't mean it like that," He said in an obvious tone. "You can start chants for us so that others would repeat it."

"Oh, well, I don't really do sports all that much. The closest I've been to a stadium is being served stadium-quality food at the Diamond Diner."

"Oh! We go to that diner whenever we win a game and have a huge celebration special."

"What about when you lose?"

"Well then we run to the diner and sell out the special celebration meals before they do."

"Really?"

"I'm just messing with you. We just go home, rest hard, and train harder tomorrow. Although, I do meet up with some of the other team players later and have a private match." He laughed loudly again.

"IF it breaks down." I heard a high-pitched voice say from the other side of the room.

"It will," Sonja stated.

"Even then, it'd be a great chance for everyone to chip in! We can get the new girl to join us!" The ebony-skinned girl with short black hair and numerous yellow butterfly hair-clips had cheerily suggested. She saw me and waved.

"You're Theo's friend, Gwen, right?" She smiled widely.

"That'd be me."

"It's so great to see you finally!" She hugged me. "I don't usually hug people but since you're Theo's friend then that's totally fine."

She let go of me and grinned. "I'm Adana Duchess."

A Duchess? The Duchesses are known to be one the wealthiest families in Goldenbloom, still the one of the wealthiest!

She looked at me closely with a curious expression and finally said something. "What's your sign?"

"My sign...as in?" I held my hand up in a 'Stop' motion.

"No, silly," She pointed upwards.

"Look up?"

"Star sign. My birthday party is coming up tomorrow, I'd love for you to come but we need to prepare first in case we aren't compatible enough to maintain each other's good auras."

"My birthday... is in October."

"Late or early?"

"I'm a Libra."

Adana gasped and beamed at the fact.

"We're totally sisters then." She hooked my arm with hers. "We have to look out for each other."

"Are you sure? How do you trust me?"

"I trust you because you're Theo's friend and a friend of a friend is my friend through shared relationships. I call it the root effect," She confidently told me.

"Root effect?" I asked.

"It's when someone's relationship with another person is able to affect another one of their relationship and thus the other relationship's perception of the other relationship."

"I almost understand."

"It isn't through understanding, it's through feeling." She touched her heart and swayed side to side lightly.

"Gwendolen, I will make it my personal duty to make sure that us Libras, will be getting the party we deserve. Now, my parents have given me this once in a lifetime chance to hold a slumber party at my house!" She took out a rainbow gel pen and wrote down her address on the back of a sticky note she found on the ground. "Please come! It'll really mean the world to me."

An invitation to be at a mansion party? Now that's not that hard of a choice. If there are students there, there's bound to be some drama.


End file.
